Rep. Elijah Cummings hosts town hall meeting on DOJ report

Community input sought on Baltimore police reforms

The Baltimore Police Department is about to undergo a host of court-ordered changes following the Department of Justice investigation. Now the Justice Department wants to hear from the community on what those changes should be.

The Baltimore Police Department is about to undergo a host of court-ordered changes following the Department of Justice investigation.

Now the Justice Department wants to hear from the community on what those changes should be.

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U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Baltimore), the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and a wide variety of residents and groups from the community gathered Wednesday at the University of Maryland School of Law to begin to answer a big question: how to reform the Baltimore Police Department.

This town hall meeting is part of the community input process ahead of the Department of Justice consent decree, the binding agreement that Baltimore City will change its policing practices in the wake of the DOJ’s report that highlighted problems within the police report.

“I'm begging you to work with this process, this is the only one we got and we must take this moment and turn it into a movement,” Cummings said.

The Department of Justice invited suggestions on what reforms should be included in the consent decree.

“(The decree should require) police officers in the districts in which they serve to have weekly conversations that are facilitated by Baltimore community mediators,” resident Deena Robinson said. “We need to rebuild the trust that has been broken.”

“Any instance where police draws their weapon, there should be a mandatory drug test afterward and any instance where there's a police-involved shooting or killing there should be a mandatory drug test,” University of Maryland law student Duane Bond said.

Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said this process will take time to complete.

“To transform a police department and public safety system this broken is going to require our engagement for years,” Ifill said.

The city's police union tweeted out Wednesday that they too met with the Department of Justice about consent decree negotiations.